Overweight? There's a Vaccine for That

New vaccines promote weight loss. A new study, published in BioMed Central's open access journal, Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, assesses the effectiveness of two somatostatin vaccinations, JH17 and JH18, in reducing weight gain and increasing weight loss in mice.

Obesity and obesity-related disease is a growing health issue worldwide. Somatostatin, a peptide hormone, inhibits the action of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), both of which increase metabolism and result in weight loss.

Vaccination with modified somatostatin causes the body to generate antibodies to somatostatin, effectively removing this inhibition without directly interfering with the growth hormones and subsequently increasing energy expenditure and weight loss.

Keith Haffer from Braasch Biotech LLC, tested the vaccinations in two groups of ten diet-induced obese male mice compared with a control group of ten mice which received saline injections.

Mice in all groups had been fed a high fat diet for eight weeks prior to the study and continued to eat the same food for the duration of the six-week study.

The vaccinations were administered twice - at the start of the study followed by a booster vaccination on day 22.

Four days after the first injection of modified somatostatin, the vaccinated mice had a 10% drop in body weight (not seen in the control mice).

At the end of the study, results showed that both vaccines induced antibodies to somatostatin and significantly reduced body weight, sustaining a 10% lower body weight, without affecting normal levels of the growth hormone IGF-1, or insulin levels.

He continued, "Although further studies are necessary to discover the long term implications of these vaccines, treatment of human obesity with vaccination would provide physicians with a drug- and surgical- free option against the weight epidemic."

Fluctuations in female sex hormones could play a role in the development of allergies and asthma, a major review of evidence suggests. Analysis of studies involving more than 500,000 women highlights a link between asthma symptoms and key life changes such as puberty and menopause. Further investigation could help explain why asthma is more common in boys than girls in childhood, but more common in teenage girls and women following puberty.